Sony doesn't know how to fight

[Gremal]

Originally Posted by Anton

I know what your trying to say Gremal, but I'm not in total agreement. I don't think the average consumer thinks SD Technology (and therefore DVD) is perfect, because there is plenty of consumer awareness of HDTV.

Maybe in certain segments around major metropolitan areas, but the average consumer (despite all the hype you read in the home theater rags) is not adopting HDTV. We are in a niche market. We have disposable income. About 90% of the US population does not.

In fact, I doubt many consumers would even want to purchase a SDTV if they had the choice.

Most consumers live paycheck to paycheck and just try to keep their car running and take care of their family. I think we are in a very insular bubble on forums like this.

Originally Posted by Greenmatiz2

You know nothing about advertising rates.

Whoa. Where did that come from? I've been working on placing ads with my company for the past 9 yrs and I even worked on ads for an electronics company in the A/V industry before that.

100,000 is a drop in the bucket for TV. You would be lucky to get more than a few national ads in just the USA for that these days.

Are you addressing anything I said in my post? I was trying to refer to the TV ads for Casino Royale and Apocalypto which in addition to announcing the DVD release also announce blu-ray.

Stickers would cost very, very little, and would be much more effective for the money.

The only people who would see stickers are people already shopping for blu-ray and they are well aware of the situation and studio support. Like I said, you need to look at the market segment you are targeting. You put those stickers on the BDs and it accomplishes nothing, and the cost may be negligible compared to TV airtime, but Sony is paying for that airtime anyway, just for the DVD introduction. With stickers you not only pay for printing, but you pay for having a mailhouse stick those things on the shrinkwrap. I would much rather see Sony's marketing dollars be spent more wisely.

Sony is multi-million-dollar company. They should be spending money promoting BR more than they are.

That is just an insane statement. The amount of dollars Sony has sunk into blu-ray--almost singlehandedly spearheading introduction of the format and shouldering the burden of R&D and marketing thus far--is staggering. We movie fans are forever indebted to them because without Sony, we would have HD-DVD forced down our throats with no competition. The most important way Sony can promote blu-ray is to bring prices down, drum up more support from electronics manufacturers and studios, and that is where the focus needs to be right now. Another important area is settling the issue of standards like HDMI so the compatibility issues are fixed. Until then, even niche consumers will be a little wary.

And stickers were just one small sample idea of how they could be doing more than they are.

It is an example of how "in the box" people on this forum are thinking, as if they are the only market segment to think about. The unfortunate reality is that blu-ray cannot succeed with our support alone. Do you really think people are walking around in brick-and-mortars and looking at stickers on BDs and making buying decisions based on that? Use your head. Folks who own a HD-DVD player will not buy blu-ray no matter how many stickers you plaster on the shrinkwrap. Hopefully they will realize the studios support blu-ray more broadly and will eventually buy a BD player, at which point stickers will not matter.

If you want to win a football game, you don't leave your best players on the bench -- and you don't handicap yourself by not using your best plays. Sony isn't using their best, or highlighting their strengths enough.

Sorry, but I disagree. Sony has won many important games already by bringing blu-ray hardware and software to market and steadily gaining the respect of the home theater and gaming markets. Sony has brought on many manufacturers and studios and is now prominently mentioning blu-ray in ads and promotions. These are major accomplishments.

Sometimes I wonder if Sony doesn't sit around debating what to do at the upper levels so much, that they don't react fast enough. This is why I worry they will do too little too late.

All companies, when they are as big and successful as Sony, are like elephants. They act and react more slowly and methodically than smaller companies, but they have long memories. It's so easy to criticize Sony and lay the blame at Sony's feet for the inherent problems and challenges with making a high-resolution format succeed. There is no magic bullet for overcoming these challenges--which I still say has more to do with supplanting DVD as the reining video format than in beating HD-DVD in the niche market. If Sony continues to take the long-term strategy and looks at how to use its budget and resources to accomplish that instead of descending into the myopia of a format war with HD-DVD, blu-ray will do fine.

Another thing--it is considered poor form to even mention your competition in ads and marketing collateral. I'm glad Sony is taking the high road.